TV Industry Generated £17.5 Billion for U.K. Economy

LONDON: New research from Deloitte has found that the television industry generated £17.5 billion ($27.7 billion) in revenues in the U.K. in 2012, which represents around 1 percent of the national GDP.

The report, What Television Is: 2013, was commissioned by The Royal Television Society. It also found that indirect sales, such as books and music revenues driven directly by TV, added another £500 million to TV's direct economic impact.

Ed Shedd, head of Deloitte’s UK technology, media and telecoms practice, said: “TV’s role in society is built on solid foundations. The U.K. devotes about a quarter of all waking time, on average four hours, watching the small screen and total spend on television for services and equipment is only about one per cent of GDP. Its share of GDP declined just 0.05 percent from 2007 to 2012, from 1.18 percent to 1.14 percent.”

Findings show that the growth of pay TV has slowed considerable. In 2012, year-on-year growth for all forms of pay TV was 1.6 percent. This is a significant drop from the overall pay-TV growth of 8.5 percent reported between 2010 and 2011.

Paul Lee, director of technology, media and telecommunications research at Deloitte, said: “Pay TV’s revenue can still increase in the medium term; the U.K.’s demand for television products and services has not yet been fully satisfied and there are still aspects of the television market that are under-served. For example, pay TV can cover sports in depth, to complement the highlights shown on the public service broadcaster channels.  

“Pay TV can also be driven by premium content stacking; we expect consumers to source their favorite programs from multiple pay-TV providers, not just one at the exclusion of all others.”

The research showed that half of the respondents used SVOD services in addition to their existing pay-TV subscriptions. SVOD revenues are expected to reach £160 million in 2013, an increase of 167 percent from the prior year.